PJ day

My Sunday was a lazy day in that I stayed in my pj's all day... it was glorious! I did however take care of Toby and wash a million dishes from making chili and cornbread muffins. 

I called my little brother to tell him about his own batch of chili. He told me that some items he ordered for me from Amazon had arrived so Toby and I loaded up in the car and off we went to get the stuff.... oh and to take Brandon some cookies.... see my next post.

Brandon's chili.

 Toby enjoying the car ride. 

Happy Sunday to you!

Chili

My really good friend Bonnie gave me her chili recipe and I promise you it's AMAZING! I did however leave out the green chilies as I have taste buds that think ketchup is perfectly spiced.

Also, the recipe calls for ground chuck but according to the butcher that no longer exists so he told me to use a fattier ground beef. 

Here's what you need: Diced tomatoes, kidney beans, pinto beans, chopped celery, tomato sauce, onion, and ground beef. Oh and spices!

Brown a little over 2 pounds of the beef.

Make sure to break up the meat so it's in small pieces.

Here comes the secret part of this chili.... you HAVE to rinse your meat. If you don;t you will have a layer of fat in your chili.

But if you rinse your chili with cold water the fat will clump and float to the surface and thus gross you out! So, rinse with hot water!

Now it's all a matter of dumping everything into a huge pot.

In your BIGGEST pot you have dump the cooked 2 pounds of beef, a whole bag of chopped onion (the equivalent to one whole white onion chopped), 4 tablespoons chopped celery, (2) 15 ounce cans of diced tomatoes liquid included, (2) 15 ounce cans of pinto beans liquid included, (2) 15 ounce cans of kidney beans liquid included, (2) 8 ounce cans of tomato sauce, 2 cups water, 2 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon pepper, 1 tablespoon ground cumin, 4 tablespoons chili powder and 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder. Turn your stove to medium high and stir often. Once it begins to lightly boil turn down to low and simmer for an hour stirring often.

An hour later and you are set!

This recipe makes approximately 3 quarts. Also, the original recipe from Bonnie was doubled because I need a huge amount for some upcoming holiday potlucks and I figured if you are going to make something this good you should have enough for lots of leftovers!

Enjoy!

Cornbread Muffins

I decided to make cornbread muffins to go along with my chili (that recipe is coming soon!) for the upcoming work parties I'm attending. I also wanted to a batch for my little brother for the freezer meals I make him. Here we go! 

Here's what you need: Milk, sugar, flour, salt, baking powder, Greek yogurt (I used this instead of using so much butter!), corn meal, butter and eggs.

In a bowl dump 4 cups flour, 2 cups cornmeal, 1 cup sugar, 3 tablespoons baking powder, and 1 teaspoon salt.

Stir to combine.

Make a well in the dry ingredients.

In a separate bowl crack 4 eggs.

Using your electric mixer with whisk attachment mix the eggs until light and slightly fluffy.

Add 1 cup milk and 1 cup Greek yogurt. Mix until smooth.

Remember that well you made? Pour about half of the wet mix into the dry mix and barely combine with a fork. You are just introducing the ingredients to each other.

Barely mixed. The main reason I did this was because I didn't flour flying around my kitchen once I used my mixer.

Add the rest of the wet ingredients.

Using the electric mixer combine everything.

At this point it's almost like cookie dough.

Now for the good stuff..... butter! Paula Deen would be proud! Melt 1 cup of butter however don't get it to hot otherwise you will ruin your batter as it has eggs.

Now the scary part pour it all over your dough. It's only scary becasue now it will be delicious!

Mix it all together.

I apologize for the weird angle. Line a cupcake pan with liners.

Using the cookie ball I placed 2 scoops into each well. I then sprinkled a little sugar on top for sweetness.

Bake at 350 for 15 to 20 minutes. Be careful as these are dense... don't over cook the bottoms of the muffins!

They turned out very moist! This recipe made exactly 34 muffins. 

Enjoy!

Dark Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

These cookies are my little brother's favorite cookie of all time. I think it's the brown sugar and oatmeal are his love language. He was the kid who ate oatmeal/brown sugar hot cereal EVERY morning. So, for his Christmas goodie I'm making these...

Mix 1 cup butter with 1 and 1/2 cups brown sugar. It doesn't matter if it's light or dark brown sugar.... it's all good no matter what! 

Mix until creamy.

Add 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (use the good stuff!) and one egg. And no my egg doesn't have blood in it, it's the vanilla in the picture.

Mix until smooth. Add 1 and 1/2 cups flour, 1 teaspoon backing soda, 1/4 teaspoon salt and 2 cups instant rolled oats.

Mix until large crumbs form. Add a HEAPING cup of dark chocolate chips. My chips don't look the same because I had several bags of different brands but trust me it's no biggie that they don't match... they all taste delicious!

Mix until chocolate chips are evenly distributed.

I placed my dough in the freezer becasue one bag is for my little brother (he in college) and the other bag is for next week at Christmas.

Now if you are going to go ahead and make the dough now here's what you do.... using your handy dandy cookie ball scooper. Before I can go on I must confess my deep love for mine! It's by far the best kitchen tool ever know to man..... well at least me anyway! Okay back to cookie dough.... place cookie dough balls on cookie sheet and place in preheated oven set to 350 degrees and bake for 10 to 12 minutes. Let cool. This recipe make approximately 4 dozen. 

Enjoy!

Friday the 13th

"I'm not superstitious, I'm a little stitious."
NAME THAT SHOW!!!

Anyway, I'm not superstitious but after today I'm pretty sure I will now be! 

On my way to work there were tons of police cars everywhere blocking off several blocks downtown. I was almost late to work which made nervous as I'm technically in a probation period of switching into a new job, don't worry it's standard for all employees. But back to the police everywhere.... come to find out there was a bomb scare at a local business but ended up being a bag of clothes. I'm glad that all was well. Lately a lot of major crimes have occurred in our small town so I think everyone is just on edge. However, I do support my local police department and I most defiantly grateful for their service. 

When I first started at a my new job there was an e-mail sent sating that we could wear jeans on Friday.... remember Friday.... ok? Back to the 13th, I got to work wearing my jeans and feeling so odd that I could in fact wear these at work!?!? I know this may seem silly for 99% of you but just please understand that I would NEVER normally be allowed such a privilege! As soon as I walked in (just barely in time as I was almost late, see previous paragraph) I realized that no one else had their jeans on which seemed so odd. I immediately asked why everyone was in normal work clothes and was informed that the Friday jean thing was for the day after Thanksgiving and a ONE TIME ONLY thing. I died a little from embarrassment! Luckily my supervisor and director were understanding and allowed me to run home to change.

The day did get better as we had our company Christmas party. Also this was way too much fun and so yummy!

FYI-they call this a sampler pack... scary as it weighs over four pounds! See our tree.... it's smells so wonderful!

100!

Holy smokes... 100! Yeah! Thank you for joining me on my journey through this interesting experience. Interesting as in good. I apologize for my delay in posts but know I have a ton coming soon! 

On Thursday one of my new/former co-workers gave me a tree. She heard I didn't have a tree and despite the fact that I have zero space she insisted that I have a tree. So, folks here's my literal Charlie Brown Christmas tree.

Now that it's up I find it absolutely adorable! I had placed the presents under it but i ended up looking like a candle on a massive cake. So, for now it's solo and looking adorable! 

Do you have your tree up?

Blue Monday

Holy smokes we are now over 2,000 views! THANK YOU.... yes YOU! I appreciate that you are taking time to see what I'm up to!

Now that we are all fired up can this horribly cold weather go away now? It' absolutely, bitterly, freezing cold right now! I have my heater cranked up, thermals on and the heating blanket on high but it' still chilly! Burrr! 

Work went really well today despite a lot of staff being out due to the weather. We listened to 80's music on Pandora all day long and it reminded me my childhood. My Mom didn't sing lullaby's to me, she sang 80's music! So, all day I felt like a kid again. Again, I'm so HAPPY I made the switch even if at first it scared me out of my mind!

After work Karina and her husband Steve picked me up and we all went to dinner to celebrate Steve's final final (does that make sense?) for the semester. We went to this hole in the wall place but the food was yummy! 

So, in honor of the 80's here's my music Monday selection. Enjoy!